


Camaraderie

by ScaryScarecrows



Series: Garage Tapes [1]
Category: Gotham City Garage (Comics)
Genre: Antoine is done with Jay's self-endangering bullshit, Bad powerpoints, Gen, Long-suffering minion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-08 06:28:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14688408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScaryScarecrows/pseuds/ScaryScarecrows
Summary: “Need something?”The strength not to beat him over the head with the Common Sense Stick.“Yeah. For you to not be a dumbass that gets killed by a sandworm,” he says bluntly. “And just in case that’s hard for you to understand, I brought a Power Point.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. So the Arkham Knight's Militia *could* be the Red Hood Gang. No one told me they couldn't. (Antoine tried to run from me. He didn't get far.) Anyways, I don't know how they got here, and I don't care.

Antoine brushes off his jeans, adjusts his worn beret, and follows the sound of the bass. It’s hotter than Hell out here, and even considering this is the damn desert, it’s extreme today. Nobody’s out that doesn’t have to be, not even a tumbleweed. Even the short walk across the compound leaves him sweaty and gross and cursing the sun, but no matter. He has found the boss.

Fuckin’ finally.

He shoves the door open and gets nailed with a blast of cold air and the bone-shaking of the bass and a growled, “You got a body like an animal, and a face like a queen-”

Oh, good, he’s in a good mood. Operation: You Fucking Idiot is a go.

Antoine stalks in, letting the door slam behind him, and maybe hesitates a second under the vent because oh, sweet Baby Baguette Jesus (so tender and mild), that feels nice.

But only a second. He has a lecture to deliver.

Jason Todd, the boss, the Goddamn Moron Supreme, is working on his bike. His jacket’s flung off to the side, leaving him in jeans and a shirt that’s tighter than usual thanks to the bandages coiling halfway up his body. Antoine clings to those bandages as motivation not to beat him over the head until he sees sense.

Baby Baguette Jesus (so tender and mild), give him strength.

“Hey, boss,” he says, willing his voice to stay nice and neutral (well, considering he has to shout over the radio). “Got a sec?”

A finger pops up from around a wrench. A minute later, Jason sets the wrench down, turns the radio to a more reasonable volume, and straightens up.

“Need something?”

The strength not to beat him over the head with the Common Sense Stick.

“Yeah. For you to not be a dumbass that gets killed by a sandworm,” he says bluntly. “And just in case that’s hard for you to understand, I brought a Power Point.”

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and opens the app, pretending that he doesn’t hear the boss trying not to die of laughter as he walks over.

“You’re kidding me, Drouot.” Nope. “Oh, my God. You’re not kidding me.”

He doesn’t kid. He is a grown-ass man, unlike _some_ people in this room.

He brings up his Power Point, titled ‘Reasons Death is a Bad Idea’, and barely resists the urge to grab the guy by the ear to make sure he’s fucking looking at it.

“One,” he says, zooming in to make sure this is really clear, “your mom will kill me if I have to tell her you bit it picking fights with sandworms.”

“I didn’t pick a fight-”

Irrelevant. He swipes to slide two.

“Two, it’s gonna be a real bitch to re-resurrect you, which is probably gonna take forever-”

“That was a freak thing-”

“And three, you know who gets saddled with these idiots if you die? Me. I don’t wanna be saddled with these idiots, boss.”

“They’re not that bad.”

“No. No.” He closes the Power Point, eyes the way Jason’s standing (shaky, tilted like he wants to be doubled over, one arm curled around his stomach in a way that says he doesn’t even realize), and sighs. “Siddown, sir, if you faint I’m not catching you.”

“You’d try.”

“Try me.”

He shrugs, shuffles back to his bike, and flops down on the floor under the vent with a low groan. Dumbass. Antoine follows, though, and settles down cross-legged next to him.

“I have counter-arguments.”

“Come on!”

“One, my mom is not gonna kill you. She kills wolf spiders, ‘cause one hid in her cup lid once and its leg went up the straw, but I have to kill everything else. She transports roaches outside, Drouot. _Roaches_.” Yeah, but roaches wouldn’t be knocking on her door to report her son died of stupidity. “Three, they’re not that bad.”

Antoine does indeed notice that he’s skipped Two. But Two can wait.

“No. They are that bad. I live with the smug reality that at the end of the day, they’re not mine. S’like bein’ a babysitter. You cram it full of sugar, send it back, and revel in being able to get blackout drunk. Parents? They got keep it. They gotta stay sober in case it wants a drink of water at three A.M.”

Jason promptly bursts out laughing, which lasts for all of thirty seconds before he half-doubles over and gasps, “Oh, God, laughing hurts…shut up. Just don’t.”

Serves him right.

The pained gasping eventually tapers off. Antoine refuses to be glad. Stupid should hurt. Not picking fights with sandworms is like, Desert Life 101. Doesn’t matter if there’s tourists, you leave ‘em to fend.

“And two,” Jason finally forces out, voice a lot weaker than it was, “that was a freak thing, I don’t expect or _want_ another one. There’s an envelope in my desk explaining exactly what I want done, if the shit hits the fan, and you are going to follow that. That’s an _order_ , Antoine, do you understand me?”

The boss has called Antoine by his first name maybe- _maybe_ five times since they’ve known each other, and one of those was an undercover thing in Gotham proper and therefore only half-counts. One of the other times was discussing the, ah, resurrection incident, and there had been a lot of vodka involved. He still remembers too much of it.*

“Yeah, boss,” he says unhappily. “I understand you. Crystal clear.”

“Good.” He uncurls a little bit, scarred hand (coffin splinters, he’d explained, graves aren’t designed to be easy to get out of) swiping for the wrench. “’Sides, you’d be fine. They listen to you. Y’know. When it counts.”

His Power Point didn’t do the damn trick. But he came prepared.

“All righty, then,” he says, taking his beret off and fingering a spot where one of the patches is coming loose. “I didn’t want to have to resort to this, but here it is. If you get eaten by a sandworm, I will personally change the record to state that you weren’t looking where you were going and drove off a cliff by accident.”

That pulls Jason up short, wrench clattering back to the ground.

“You wouldn’t.”

“Mm-hm.” He nods smugly. “I would. And you’re right, they do listen to me when it counts. They’d buy every word.”

“You’re _mean._ ”

“So I’ve been told, boss.”

“The hell did I ever do to you?”

“Made my life hard, boss.”

“God dammit.”

Thank you, Baby Baguette Jesus (so tender and mild).

“Glad we had this talk, sir.” He stands up. “Maybe, uh, maybe call it quits before Mark comes down on you with the wrath of Axl Rose seeing a camera.”

“What.” Ah, there’s panic there. Ahahahaha! “You told him I was here?”

“No, but he’s gonna come looking sooner or later.”

“Shit.” There’s the **clang!** of the wrench being flung into the tool box. “You didn’t see me.”

“Of course not, sir.”

THE END

 

*To be fair, they found the vodka and figured they should make sure it wasn’t expired, then they didn’t want it to go bad because it was open, and things got depressing. But that wasn’t how it started.


	2. Sad PowerPoint

 

 

Antoine is neither artistically talented or, really, technologically talented. So. His sad, sad attempt to save the boss from himself is...help him.


End file.
